Arab EFL Learners' Acquisition of Modals This paper investigates Arab EFL learners' acquisition of modal verbs. The study used a questionnaire, which comprises two versions, testing students' mastery of modals at the levels of both recognition and production. The questionnaire was distributed to 50 English major university students who had studied English for 12-14 years and who had scored 500 or more on the TOEFL. The findings of the study show that the overall performance of the subjects in the study was quite low. The study established a hierarchy of difficulty and identified the major causes of difficulty in the use of modals.

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This paper investigates the effect of text-messaging on Arab EFL learners’ English academic writing. It also investigates teachers’ attitudes and reactions to the presence of e-texting features in their students’ writing. Qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis were employed on data obtained from the following sources: (1) a sample of freshman students’ writing, (2) a survey investigating students’ use of e-chatting in Arabic and English, and (3) a questionnaire eliciting teachers’ reactions to students’ use of texting features in academic writing. The data were collected from a student sample of the Arab Open University (AOU). The research findings show that Arab EFL students’ writing does not reveal a heavy use of texting features, which suggests that this phenomenon neither poses a serious threat nor adversely impacts students’ written English.

This paper attempts a theoretical, thematic and translational analysis of fauna-based popular proverbs that are frequently used in the Arab culture. The study selects the Jordanian and Yemeni cultures and analyzes a group of 200 animal proverbs that are commonly used in these two Arab sub-cultures. Findings of the study reveal that animal proverbs constitute a major component of the repertoire of proverbs in both Jordan and Yemen, a fact which is ascribed to the prominent role animals have always played in the Arab nomadic and agricultural lifestyle. Although most proverbial themes heard in Jordan are also heard in Yemen, the corpus reveals some contrasting features in terms of wording and icons employed. In terms of translation, animal proverbs can travel into English supported by annotation or relevant contexts. In particular, the process of intercultural transfer is largely enhanced by accessing familiar proverbial templates in the target language.